"Captain Swing" was an anonymity pseudonym that was appended to several threatening letters during the rural Swing Riots of 1830, when labourers rioted over the introduction of new threshing machines and the loss of their livelihoods. The name, an invented one, came to symbolise the anger of the poor labourers in rural England who wanted a return to the pre-machine days of human labour.
"Captain Swing" was an anonymity pseudonym that was appended to several threatening letters during the rural Swing Riots of 1830, when labourers rioted over the introduction of new threshing machines and the loss of their livelihoods. The name, an invented one, came to symbolise the anger of the poor labourers in rural England who wanted a return to the pre-machine days of human labour.
Source: Wikipedia "Captain Swing" · CC BY-SA 4.0
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